# source
## English
### Etymology

From Middle English sours, from Old French sorse (“rise, beginning, spring, source”), from sors, past participle of sordre, sourdre, from Latin surgō (“to rise”), which is composed of sub- (“up from below”) +‎ regō (“lead, rule”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₃réǵeti (“to straighten; right”), from the root *h₃reǵ-. See surge.

### Pronunciation

* (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /sɔːs/
* Audio (UK):(file)
* (General American) IPA: /sɔɹs/
* Audio (US):(file)
* (rhotic, without the horse–hoarse merger) IPA: /so(ː)ɹs/
* (non-rhotic, without the horse–hoarse merger) IPA: /soəs/
* (obsolete) IPA: /suːɹs/, /sʊɹs/
* Homophone: sauce (non-rhotic, horse–hoarse merger)
* Rhymes: -ɔː(ɹ)s

### Noun

source (plural sources)
* The person, place, or thing from which something (information, goods, etc.) comes or is acquired.
    The accused refused to reveal the source of the illegal drugs she was selling.
** 2006, Edwin Black, chapter 2, in Internal Combustion‎:More than a mere source of Promethean sustenance to thwart the cold and cook one's meat, wood was quite simply mankind's first industrial and manufacturing fuel.
** 2013 July 6, “The rise of smart beta”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8843, page 68:Investors face a quandary. Cash offers a return of virtually zero in many developed countries; government-bond yields may have risen in recent weeks but they are still unattractive. Equities have suffered two big bear markets since 2000 and are wobbling again. It is hardly surprising that pension funds, insurers and endowments are searching for new sources of return.
* Spring; fountainhead; wellhead; any collection of water on or under the surface of the ground in which a stream originates.
    The main sources of the Euphrates River are the Karasu and Murat Rivers.
** 1969 July 3 [1969 May 28], “A View of the O-erh-ch'i-ssu River Delta”, in Translations on People's Republic of China, number 59, United States Joint Publications Research Service, sourced from Hong Kong, Ta Kung Pao, p 8, translation of 額爾齊斯河流域風貌 by 念澄 (in Chinese), →OCLC, Economic, page 11:The O-erh-ch'i-ssu River begins in the southern section of the lofty A-erh-t'ai Mountains of Sinkiang. This river is over 2,900 kilometers long and has a large delta area rich in minerals such as gold, iron, copper, lead, zinc, mercury, mica, crystal and "ping-chou-shih" [3056 3166 4258 possibly cryolite]. At the source of the O-erh-ch'i-ssu River, the A-erh-t'ai Mountains reach more than 3,000 meters above sea level. The peaks of the mountains are covered with snow year-round, and rainfall is heavy in the summer.我國新疆的額爾齊斯河,發源於巍峨的阿爾泰山東部, […] 額爾齊斯河全長二千九百多公里,它的流域面積很廣,在它流域的廣闊土地上,蘊藏著豐富的寶藏,其中有金,鐵,銅,鉛,鋅,水銀,雲母,氷洲石,水晶等. 額爾齊斯河的發源地阿爾泰山,也是我國的名山,海拔三千米以上,山常年積雪,夏天雨水很多.
** 2013 August 16, John Vidal, “Dams endanger ecology of Himalayas”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 10, page 8:Most of the Himalayan rivers have been relatively untouched by dams near their sources. Now the two great Asian powers, India and China, are rushing to harness them as they cut through some of the world's deepest valleys.
* A reporter's informant.
* (computing) Source code.
* (electronics) The name of one terminal of a field effect transistor (FET).
* (graph theory) A node in a directed graph whose edges all go out from it; one with no entering edges.
* (mathematics, category theory) The domain of a function; the object which a morphism points from.
    Coordinate term: target

#### Synonyms

* wellspring

#### Antonyms

* (antonym(s) of “graph theory”): sink

#### Hyponyms

* crowdsource
* datasource
* primary source
* secondary source
* source code
* tertiary source

#### Derived terms

* airmass source region
* broken source
* closed-source
* closed source
* crowd-source
* data source
* energy source
* e-source
* inner source
* life-source
* light source
* open source
* open-source
* orphan source
* point source
* power source
* quasi-stellar radio-source
* quasi-stellar radio source
* radio source
* sealed source
* second source
* source-available
* source configuration management
* source control
* source criticism
* source document
* source domain
* source language
* sourceless
* sourceness
* source routing
* source text
* souse
* ur-source

#### Related terms

* resource

#### Translations

    The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

#### See also

* target

### Verb

source (third-person singular simple present sources, present participle sourcing, simple past and past participle sourced)
* To obtain or procure: used especially of a business resource.
** 2023 July 12, Pip Dunn, “Class 99s: "ultimate Electro-Diesel"”, in RAIL, number 987, page 52:But the point when it would have to look at alternative new-build vehicles was always looming large, and there would inevitably be a finite number of Class 66s it could source from elsewhere, and a limit to other locomotives it could re-power.
* (transitive) To find information about (a quotation)'s source (from which it comes): to find a citation for.

#### Derived terms

* (mainly US): sourcing
* (mainly US): insourcing
* (mainly US): outsourcing

#### Translations
### References

* ↑ Jespersen, Otto (1909) A Modern English Grammar on Historical Principles (Sammlung germanischer Elementar- und Handbücher; 9)‎, volumes I: Sounds and Spellings, London: George Allen & Unwin, published 1961, § 13.36, page 368.

### Further reading

* “source”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
* “source”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.

### Anagrams

* 'course, Couser, Crouse, Crusoe, cerous, coures, course, crouse

## Chinese
### Alternative forms

* 梳屎, 梳士

### Etymology

From English source.

### Pronunciation

* Cantonese (Jyutping): so$^1$ si$^2$
* Cantonese
** (Standard Cantonese, Guangzhou–Hong Kong)
*** Jyutping: so$^1$ si$^2$
*** Yale: sō sí
*** Cantonese Pinyin: so$^1$ si$^2$
*** Guangdong Romanization: so$^1$ xi$^2$
*** Sinological IPA : /sɔː⁵⁵ siː³⁵/

### Noun

source (Hong Kong Cantonese)
* source (person, place, thing)
* (university slang) source material used for copying or plagiarism

### References

* English Loanwords in Hong Kong Cantonese

## French
### Etymology

Inherited from Old French sorse (“rise, beginning, spring, source”), from sors, past participle of sordre, sourdre, from Latin surgere (“to rise”). See surge.

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /suʁs/
* Audio:(file)

### Noun

source f (plural sources)
* source, spring (of water)
* source, origin (of anything)

#### Derived terms

* code source
* couler de source
* eau de source
* langue source
* prendre sa source
* Salles-la-Source
* source chaude

#### Descendants

* → Romanian: sursă

### Verb

source
* inflection of sourcer:
** first-person singular/third-person singular present indicative/present subjunctive
** second-person singular imperative

### Further reading

* “source”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

### Anagrams

* coeurs, cœurs
* coures
* course, coursé
* écrous

## Middle English
### Noun

source
* Alternative form of sours